“All About Me,” with Michael Feinstein and
Dame Edna Everage as dueling stars, is
at Henry Miller’s Theater.Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Some egos, particularly in this business we call show, are way too big and unruly to share a spotlight. I mean that in the nicest possible way, to use a disclaimer often employed by the great Dame Edna Everage. It is, as it happens, Dame Edna of whom I am speaking.

That professionally famous, mauve-haired Australian housewife has returned to Broadway in a show called “All About Me” at Henry Miller’s Theater. But it is not only about her. And, ah, there’s the rub, to use another Edna-ism. Or is that from Shakespeare? Dame Edna has a way of making you believe she invented anything worth quoting — that is, if she’s given half a chance to wrap (and nearly smother) you in her feather-boa-constrictor embrace.

In “All About Me,” which opened on Thursday night, this most dominating of dames is given what feels like less than half a chance. The production also stars Michael Feinstein, the celebrated piano-playing crooner who possesses considerable gifts of his own. But they are of an entirely different stripe from the brasher talents commanded by Dame Edna. Seen side by side, in a production that brings to mind a desperately assembled television variety show from the 1970s, these two headliners clash like polka dots paired with plaid.

The appeal of a clash of titans — as in two divas going at it tooth and nail à la “Valley of the Dolls” — is clearly what the producers of “All About Me” were hoping to capitalize on. Early publicity on the show had it that Dame Edna (the alter ego of the fearless comedian Barry Humphries) and Mr. Feinstein were planning separate shows with similar titles. After some public trading of carefully phrased insults, it was announced that the Dame and the singer had agreed to appear together, though strategically leaked reports of skirmishes between them continued to surface.

But if you really want stars to collide, they had better be in the same universe. Wherever Mr. Feinstein appears, he gives the impression that he is in an intimate supper club from a time when Cole Porter and the Gershwins were the hippest songwriters working. Dame Edna makes you feel that you have been invited into her own less-than-humble home, palatial enough to accommodate a self-esteem that turns current trends into personal trophies.

Mr. Feinstein’s style is silky, glossy and whispery; Dame Edna’s is coarse, loud and harsh. But the most important difference between them is their egos, or rather how they make use of them. For all I know, Mr. Feinstein’s vanity is just as large and carnivorous as Dame Edna’s. But he presents himself as an eternally romantic boy who labors gratefully in the service of the Great American Songbook.

Dame Edna, on the other hand, labors only in the cause of her own greater glory. To put it bluntly, she belongs in a show called “All About Me,” and Mr. Feinstein does not. Pretending otherwise does neither performer any favors.

Photo

Dame Edna flanked by Gregory Butler, left, and Jon-Paul Mateo in “All About Me,” which opened on Thursday.Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

The show’s creative team, which includes the director Casey Nicholaw and the writer Christopher Durang, have tried to turn these dissimilarities into selling points, as if their stars were the new Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. It’s a he-sings, she-squawks sort of format, with Mr. Feinstein performing Champagne standards like “My Romance” and Dame Edna doing her singular high-heeled stand-up.

There’s a running joke about each trying to have the other evicted from the theater, before a brawny stage manger (Jodi Capeless) steps in and insists they play nice. This involves their being allowed alternating minutes of performance time, until they finally settle into a couple of duets (written by Mr. Feinstein) about how different yet strangely compatible they are.

But neither star has time to get a groove going that would define the perimeters of a complete, self-contained fantasy world. No matter how radiantly Mr. Feinstein is singing or how amusingly Dame Edna is riffing, you’re aware of the presence of the other, just waiting to break in. The show starts to feel like one long, repeated session of coitus interruptus.

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Wearing the expected series of resplendently tacky gowns (by Stephen Adnitt), Dame Edna is allowed a few moments to patronize and embarrass audience members as only she can. She gets off a few zingers that linger. And I would never trade the memory of having seen Dame Edna crash her way through Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” (with the backup dancers Gregory Butler and Jon-Paul Mateo).

More surprisingly, after declaring the theater a “Stephen Sondheim-free zone,” Dame Edna delivers her own version of that composer’s “Ladies Who Lunch,” and it’s terrific. She uses the fear and anger that are part of any comedian’s makeup to turn an overperformed song into a funny, aggressive and bizarrely affecting acknowledgment of mortality.

I should also say that “All About Me” has the wittiest overture in town, a crazy quilt of snippets from a host of Broadway musicals: vamps from “Sweet Charity” and “Cabaret,” a swelling strain from “The Phantom of the Opera,” a glowing passage from “Sunday in the Park With George.” No segment lasts for more than a few seconds, so just when you’re starting to settle into the shape of a familiar melody, it’s pulled out from under you. This turns out be all too fitting a preface for the fragmented show that follows.

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